Nigeria trade balance turns positive in Q4 as exports jump

Nigeria’s trade balance turned positive in the fourth quarter of 2016 after exports rose by more than half, the national bureau of statistics said. This is the first positive reading since the same quarter a year ago.

The nation’s gross domestic product GDP shrank by 1.5 per cent over the course of the full year due to lower oil revenues and a shortage of hard currency, its first annual contraction in quarter of a century. With limited manufacturing capacity, Nigeria imports most of what it consumes. Fourth-quarter imports rose 46.4 per cent from the previous year to N2.31 trillion, the statistics bureau said.

But exports more than compensated for that rise, jumping 53.5 per cent in value terms from a year earlier to N2.98 trillion, the NBS data said. The balance of trade for the fourth quarter was N671 billion. The net trade balance stood at minus N290 billion for all of 2016.